After the first year of the administration of the candidate who ran on a platform of change, the biggest change is the name on the door. Under President Barack Obama the United States still has military in the Middle East, is still bailing out businesses that went bankrupt due to uncontrolled greed, is still disrespecting fundamental rights of citizens at home and abroad, and is still ensuring that insurance companies will profit from human illness. Now more than ever it appears that there will be no change in the fundamental ways in which this country functions and treats its people.

In my state, schools are forced to decide which essential programs they must cut because there is insufficient funding for all necessities. In my state, homelessness is on the increase, and resources to help the homeless and hungry are dwindling. In my state, big-box stores are rewarded for eliminating jobs and cutting wages. In my state, the only real change from before the 2008 election is the name of the official saying “No.”

And that means there can be no change in the way I handle my own fiscal obligations. I still believe that government has a duty to help those in need and to support or provide the services, materials, and diversions that make life possible for some, richer for all, and still find my government not doing so. As in past years, I have scrupulously calculated what I owe under tax regulations designed to make the lower and middle classes fund the luxuries of the upper classes, and from my payment have withheld $50. This $50, plus federal taxes I have withheld from my phone-bill payments, I am donating to the Haymarket People’s Fund, which provides support for the programs Obama only talks about (if he does even that).

Change is not always bad; some changes are not only good but crucial. I will change my approach to taxation when my government changes its approach to policy. Change can not be merely a slogan; it must be a plan with intention. I will pay my taxes in full when my country changes its direction. Until then, in the words of Mahatma Gandhi, I will be the change I want to see in the world.

Capuano for Senate After a telescoped campaign, Massachusetts Democrats go to the polls Tuesday to choose a successor to a legend, Ted Kennedy.

An Obama confidant on the surge in Afghanistan Twenty-four hours before President Barack Obama announced a 30,000-troop escalation of the Afghan War, one of his key foreign policy advisors provided a view of the president’s thinking at Brown University.

Time to end tolerance I'd like you to think about something. Ever seen the bumper sticker: "Intolerance will not be tolerated"?

How is Obama doing? In response to a question from Oprah Winfrey about how he would grade his time in office, President Barack Obama gave himself a "solid B-plus."

Reading is fundamentalist In 2009, liberals held firm control of the presidency, the US Senate, and the US House of Representatives. But there was one realm where conservatives dominated: the New York Times bestseller list.

Faltering steps forward As in many other sectors, the green world in 2009 was marked as much by bluster as by tangible positive action.

Tea-bagger Brown triumphs Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley may be a good person and a dedicated public servant, but thanks to her gut-wrenching loss to tea-bagging Republican Scott Brown in the race for the US Senate seat held by the late Ted Kennedy, Coakley is now — quite rightly — a figure of local scorn and national derision.

How Brown won As the Massachusetts US Senate election unfolded yesterday, all that the pols and pundits wanted to talk about was how Martha Coakley managed to lose the race. And there is plenty there to dissect. But there is another part of the story, and that is how Scott Brown managed to win it.

DONE WAITING FOR PATIENT SAFETY | March 07, 2013 As an employee in downtown Portland as well as a resident, I've been exposed to a climate of escalating hostility surrounding the entrance to the Planned Parenthood of Northern New England offices.